


Rough Beautiful

by BranwellBronte



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Character Study, Class Issues, Hand Job, M/M, Sex, attempted Victorian England class study featuring language as an issue, background prostitution, language issues, minor blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 18:30:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19382347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BranwellBronte/pseuds/BranwellBronte
Summary: Hickey didn't always speak so "properly" and Gibson finds a little unusual language exciting.





	Rough Beautiful

            The first time he slips up and it happens with Gibson, Hickey feels like he’s burned the roof of his mouth while swallowing a boiled rotten egg.

            One of the first rules of fucking he ever set for himself was that not a single word of pleasure escapes his lips, not one. Even “Oh, yes” is too much. If he’s enjoying the fucking, what point is it to bother expressing it in words? The first time he went with a man in a back alley, the man had laughed at him when Hickey had babbled, “Oh, ain’t more just like that, please.” The man’s face had been near Hickey’s ear and the laugh had a nasty note of derision in it, like a streak of grime. “ _Ain’t more,_ ” the man had repeated with a sneer even as he did indeed obey Hickey and had continued to thrust into him at the same angle and speed. But Hickey had felt his own pleasure weaken until his cock had gone completely soft. The mindless exhilaration of being fucked for the first time had soured and he felt almost sick. The man had continued pounding away and laid his chest against Hickey’s back when it was over. He’d curled his hand over Hickey’s shoulder and Hickey had snapped around and bitten him. The man had pulled out of Hickey, slapped him, and called him “you little fucking cunt” but the sight of the tiny drop of blood on the man’s finger had been worth it. Hickey had swallowed the taste of the blood even as his cheek throbbed as the man buttoned up and stalked away without paying him.

            But the man’s mockery had bounced from one side to the other in Hickey’s head all the while Hickey had walked back to the abandoned carriage in the rubbish pile. As Hickey had settled inside for the night, the laugh peeled the paint off the walls of his mind in his dreams and in the morning, he’d found that he’d worried a new hole in the one glove he owned. He nicked a nicer pair later on from a knot of people leaving the theatre and it turned out to be an easier job than scrubbing “ain’t” from his tongue.

            The second time he fucked, he was so quiet that the man tipped him extra “for not making a ruckus and not making a mess” because Hickey had neither spoken nor come. He didn’t come because he’d spent so much energy on not speaking that any pleasure he’d felt was incidental. But the extra coins fed him for two days so it was worth it for the extra time he had to take listening to gentlemen in the park speak. Hickey repeated their speech patterns to himself and felt he deserved to exercise the sin of pride when he realized he was spending entire days thinking with his sentences in completely proper grammar.

              He could allow his pleasure to feel keen again after that, and the tips kept filling his pockets, which became better stitched with each new coat he could afford.

            So when he and Gibson fuck for the first time and Gibson peppers his moans with, “god,” “oh my god,” “oh my god Cornelius oh my god,” “so good,” “fantastic,” and the like, Hickey hums back at him but speaks not a word. But then one day Gibson stops being just a good fuck and starts to become a balm on a sore patch of the skin of Hickey’s heart. And Hickey does the unthinkable: he stops viewing recklessness as his enemy for just one moment. He lets his mind be happily dragged down into his throes as Gibson does everything he can to please Hickey. So when Gibson whispers, “Have I ever done better?” after Hickey comes and Hickey licks Gibson’s mouth and whispers, “No, not never,” into it and Gibson laughs softly and says, “That’s a new way of words for you,” Hickey bangs his elbow into his own stomach as he heaves himself away. He might have a proper lover now, but proper language is a self-burned scar he can’t allow to heal.

            Gibson reaches for him, breath heavy, “Cornelius what is it, what did I do, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did but I’m so sorry,” tumbling out. Hickey faces away from him in their secret corner on the floor, but lets Gibson touch his back, his shoulders, then hug him from behind, chin on his shoulder.

            “You didn’t do anything, Billy.”

            “Was it what I said?”

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            “You know I’ll worry about it, though. You know me.”

            And Hickey does know him, so he’s silent for a few moments more while Gibson strokes his skin, but doesn’t let too many seconds pass before he says, “I usually don’t talk, do I?”

            Gibson kisses Hickey’s neck. “No, but why would I mind if you did? I liked it when you did, actually.”

            Hickey feels himself relax back into Gibson’s arms before he can help it. “Why?”

            Gibson hauls Hickey down onto their pile of clothes and continues to hold him from behind. “I’ve never heard you talk like that.”

            “Like what?”

            “Like you were trying to play with me. By speaking roughly.”

            Hickey thinks this over while Gibson strokes his arm. He’s never thought of his former speech as “rough.” It’s only ever been “wrong.” The idea that Gibson sees “wrong” as only “rough” is so very typical of Billy, so in keeping with the zest with which he acts when he’s with Hickey. If something reminds Gibson of his childhood, he can’t simply state the fact. He has to tell Hickey the whole story, with reconstructed dialogue and hand gestures. If there’s an eyelash on Hickey’s face, Gibson can’t point it out. He has to blow it away and then kiss the spot. If they’re alone together, even for less than a minute, he has to hold Hickey’s hand.

            Hickey rolls in Gibson’s arms to face him. He traces the line of Gibson’s jaw. Gibson sighs and closes his eyes as Hickey runs a finger pad over his stubble again and again. “What did the world do to deserve you, Billy?” he murmurs.

            Gibson opens his eyes and scrunches his eyebrows, scoffing. “Now you’re only being silly.”

            Hickey tilts his chin at him. “Which do you prefer, then? Silly or rough?”

            Gibson holds Hickey’s eyes but the corners of his mouth slacken. “I upset you.”

Hickey starts to shake his head but he’s barely moved it before Gibson clutches Hickey’s face with both his hands. “I know I upset you. You don’t have to say why. But whatever bad memory I gave you, let me help you forget it. Just tell me how.”

Hickey thinks about all the things he’s never told Gibson, of all the things he’ll never tell him. Of how there is already a fraction of his heartbeat that is always telling Gibson everything, but the words only exist in that perpetual rhythm where their ugliness can stay in the tar and not risk smearing Gibson with reflected shame, because Gibson has been loving this man and doesn’t deserve dirt thrown in his face. The words never leave Hickey’s body, are never vibrated from his vocal chords. They’re ashes before they ever become smoke. He tells the story but never says it.

And he never will. But if there’s any honesty he can allow himself to show, it can be through a game Gibson has already invented for him.

“Make me a good memory, then. Listen to me.” Hickey taps his fingertips down Gibson’s chest until he reaches his waist.

Gibson bites his lip and angles his hips up. “I’m listening.”

Hickey moves his lips to Gibson’s ear. “Well then. I didn’t but not know I needed this until now, never even be lying to you.” He runs his thumb and forefinger lightly up and down Gibson’s cock. He watches as Gibson’s mouth trembles and he rests his cheek against Gibson’s, the better to whisper right in his ear. “T’ ain’t been the desire til now.”

Gibson whimpers happily. “Makes me think… _oh god_.”

“Be thinking of what now, Billy?” Hickey smooths his thumb over the head of Gibson’s cock and moves his finger slowly back and forth over the slit. “Thinkin’ so much but yet a thought never comes out your mouth.”

“I never. _Oh my god._ All my life it’s sounded so good.”

“What’s that then, eh?”

“Men speaking roughly. It’s always had to be a secret… _mmm_ …until now.”

“Secret, like? ‘Tis pity then, the fun you’re having now? Hm?” Hickey nuzzles against Gibson’s earlobe. “Get feelin’ good when you give up your secrets.”

Gibson loops a lock of Hickey’s hair around his finger, then pulls Hickey’s head down to his mouth, kissing him in between shallow gulps of air as Hickey keeps teasing his cock. “Ain’t never so hard as ye are an’ now, would say I.” Hickey wraps all his fingers around Gibson and pumps him once.

“ _Oh._ Make me harder.” Gibson reaches for Hickey’s hand and Hickey pulls it away but Gibson wrestles it back. He licks Hickey’s thumb pad and places it against one of his own nipples, rubbing slowly. Hickey watches in fascination. It’s not the first time Gibson has done this but it’s the first time he’s done it while talking, almost unconsciously, it seems. Hickey finds it’s as arousing as if Gibson were touching Hickey’s chest instead of his own. He’s aching now and his mind is going blank with each pulse. This is dangerous.

But he’s with Gibson, who he knows will be his safety net.

“Be damned,” he breathes. He pulls his hand free from Gibson’s chest and kneads his fingers into one of his arse cheeks instead. “So soft I’d as like as to cry if only I couldn’t speak. Only knowing what I ain’t never knew before.”

“And what’s that? I mean, that being what now? Or…? Am I doing this right?” Gibson blinks open his eyes and the hazy wreath of pleasure that has been hanging on them dissolves. Which is criminal, far more criminal than Hickey has ever been.

“Shush you,” Hickey whispers in earnest. “None of your talk now. Only me. You’re try to be a mouthy fella but you think too much. Can’t allow that if I’m to make you harder. So don’t you think.” He pumps Gibson a few more times until Gibson’s grip in his hair loosens and Hickey’s fingers become wetter. Hickey takes his hand away, licks it, and presses a finger into the cleft of Gibson’s arse.

            Gibson exhales sharply and keens as he breathes in again. “No thinking,” he whispers as he drops his hand from Hickey’s head and rolls onto his knees.

 _No thinking_ seems to do wonders for Gibson as Hickey stretches him. It takes less time than ever for Hickey to line himself up easily and push all the way inside him. He knows well by now how to angle himself to touch Gibson’s sweet spot but Gibson’s gasp is throatier than usual as Hickey spits out a particularly bad bit of bad grammar with bad words in it. Gibson thrusts himself backwards with a swiftness that matches the swiftness of Hickey’s speech. Hickey thinks how easy it would be for him to let go and talk how he used to without mindfully constructing these improprieties. Virtues have been useless to Hickey all his life, have been made useless by necessity of survival, but if honesty is a virtue, Hickey thinks he can be just a little too good.

So he takes his own advice and stops thinking. He talks like he used to every day until he was first laughed at. Fuck that first man. The only fuck that matters is the one Hickey and Gibson are having right now.

The words recreate themselves back into the old patterns as easy and quick as the burst of a rain fall. Hickey tramples all the boundary lines of language he’s been obeying and the chaos tastes sweet and like it belongs with the taste of Gibson on his fingers. If they weren’t confined to a hidden corner in the bowels of a ship, Hickey knows he’d be shouting and even though he can’t shout right now, the knowledge that he would be smashes a dam in his mind. As he keeps talking and bucking into Gibson, who whimpers blissfully and wraps Hickey’s hand back around his cock, he feels like he’s never had any secrets, not a single one. It’s as though he’s dismantled the bones of a bitter man who just happened to be himself once. And the pile of bones he makes can be set alight to make more room in the world for beautiful things like fucking this gift of a man and listening to the stream of “ _fuck_ , _fuck_ , _fuck_ ” that’s tumbling from Gibson’s mouth as he comes.

            Hearing Gibson say the word “fuck” is Hickey’s tipping point and he repeats this most improper of words back to Gibson as pleasure shakes his veins and he comes. He lays his chest on the sweat of Gibson’s back and grins into his skin. If there’s anything more erotic than saying “fuck” while fucking the man you want most in the world, he can’t think of it, even if he could think, which he can’t, because he’s too happy.

            They breathe together in afterglow for a minute before Gibson kneels up and kisses a line along Hickey’s lips, then opens his mouth and licks at his tongue. Hickey pushes him back down and presses their chests flush. They kiss until Gibson rests their cheeks together again.

            Hickey licks at Gibson’s stubble. “Was that what you had in mind, Billy?”

            Gibson hums. “Rough. Beautiful.” He twirls his fingers in Hickey’s hair. “You.”

            Hickey thinks of the bones and knows he has to wear them again but fuck, maybe he can take them off when they fuck again. “Me.”

            Gibson traces a line down Hickey’s spine. “You make me so happy.”

            “I’m a good one, I know.”

            Gibson smiles with all his teeth and bumps their noses together. “There. Another bit of rough. From me to you.”

            Hickey takes Gibson’s face in both of his hands. “You’re pure, Billy.”

            “I thought I was being rough.”

            “That’s exactly what I mean.” Hickey smiles against Gibson’s mouth.

            When he lies in his hammock that night, he thinks of the only man he ever fucked who used improper grammar and language the whole time. He was a good fuck, and he seemed to agree that they both were. “Ain’t we a pair,” Cornelius had said before his throat had been slit and his clothes removed and his _Terror_ documents safely tucked away in his jacket now on another man’s body.

A right fucking pair.

**Author's Note:**

> The springboard for this was that, to my knowledge, "No one ever wanted nothing from me" is the only time in the show that Hickey doesn't use what we'd consider proper grammar.


End file.
